声声慢·寻寻觅觅 Where? Where should it go, the lonely soul?

声声慢·寻寻觅觅

原作：李清照

寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚。 

乍暖还寒时候，最难将息。 

三杯两盏淡酒，怎敌他、晚来风急？ 

雁过也，正伤心，却是旧时相识。 

满地黄花堆积。憔悴损，如今有谁堪摘？ 

守著窗儿，独自怎生得黑？ 

梧桐更兼细雨，到黄昏、点点滴滴。 

这次第，怎一个愁字了得！

Where? Where should it go, the lonely soul?

- to the Tune Shengshengman

original by Li Qingzhao ( 12th century)

1st En. trans. by: G. Osing, J. Min & H. Huang (1991)

En. revision by: Julia Min ( 2025)

Where? Where should it go, the lonely soul?

Too dreary in miseries, in daydreaming!

Gone is the world's warmth, its cold

Now holding my very being.

Would a few cups of wine soothe the chill

That also violates the heart of evening?

You flying geese in the rising air

Were once our loved go-betweens.

With whom shall I pick the chrysanthemum

Shrinking and withering, now all fallen?

Am I to spend forever tonight

At my window here, alone again,

Watching at dusk, in the parasol trees,

The misty air turning inexorably to rain?

No word is desolate enough

To imitate this joyless scene!

Notes:

1. ‘flying geese’: wild geese in the sky bear a symbolic meaning in Chinese culture, representing messengers for lovers and families to send their love and regards to each other.

2. ‘parasol trees’: the autumn tree, which hardly bears any leaves, usually symbolises melancholy and loneliness in Chinese poetry.

For appreciation:

Some collections call this ci "Autumn Thoughts." It was apparently composed in August 1129 upon her husband’s death, and her sorrows had become multiple, so far as she could tell, permanent. She was distraught, yet she perhaps exerted great effort to uphold her dignity while writing.

What strikes Chinese readers most is that the original verses start with four lines that use purely the repetition of 7 words (14 words in total), resonating later with repetition (4 words) in the second stanza. “Repetition in word and phrase and in idea is the very essence of poetry,” Theodore Roethke writes in Some Remarks on Rhythm (1960). It’s one of the most intoxicating effects as it accrues expectation or desperation. Peter Sacks writes in The English Elegy (1987), “Repetition creates a sense of continuity, of an unbroken pattern such as one may oppose to the extreme discontinuity of death.”

In addition, interdental consonants are widely used from beginning to end, with a total of 57 in this 97-word poem. Together, they create the impression that she’s holding and pressing hard her deep sorrow over her husband’s death during the country’s turmoil, which is like adding snow to a frosted ground. The artistic effect is multiplied through the application.

No poet ever before used 14 words in repetition in a poem, and you could rarely find a Chinese poem with so many interdental phonetic sounds. Many poets have tried the techniques, yet nobody has met Li Qingzhao’s standards. She has again proved herself the greatest master of Ci. We, as the translators, pale in comparison for sure. We regret not being able to find a more perfect presentation of such arts in the English language. Again, Lu Xun’s words are ringing in the ear: Poetry can’t be translated. So, we proceed, aiming to fail interestingly but with promising prospects, or to succeed modestly in sparking cross-cultural interest.

· Other translators’ work for your reference:

Slow slow tune

By Lin Yutang (林语堂）

So dim, so dark. So dense, so dull.

So damp, so dank, so dead!

The weather, now warm, now cold.

Makes it harder than ever to forget.

How can thin wine and bread.

Serve as protection,

Aganinst the piercing wind of sunset?

Wild geese pass overhead.

That they are familiar.

Makes it more lamentable yet!

The ground is strewn with staid .

And withered petals;

For whom now should they be in vases set?

By the window shut, guarding it alone.

To see the sky has turned so black!

And on the Cola nut.

To hear the drizzle drone.

At dust: pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat!

Is this a mood and moment only to be called "sad"?

Reference：

1. 1. Forever Tonight at My Window by Gordon Osing, Julia Min and Huang Haipeng published by the People's Publication House Henan Province in 1991 ( "To the tune of Shengshengman" -- Where? Where should the cold soul go?/Too lonely, dreary dreaming./Gone is the world's warmth; its cold/now holds my very being./Will three cups of wine soothe/the wind violating the heart of evening?/You swallows leaving in riming air/were once our loved go-betweens.// With whom shall I pick the yellow flowers/now fallen or withering?/Am I to spend forever tonight/ at my window alone again,/ watching, in the parasol tree the mists/turning inexorably to rain?/No word is desolate enough/to imitate this joyless scene!)

2. picture from google;